Reflections of holidays caught on cameras H

LONELINESS is supposed to be the preserve of the elderly and is an affliction that is said to be as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Yet the Office for National Statistics has revealed it is also suffered by nearly a third of young people aged between 16 and 24, who admit to feeling lonely at some or all of the time.

Which is a shock in the era of social media and instant communication which is seen mainly as the preserve of the younger generation.

It shows you can’t take anything for granted and that face value assumptions can be totally wrong.

We recently had our elder daughter Siobhan and her family from Ireland staying with us which, of course, meant our younger daughter Sian and family were also OLIDAY snaps have changed over the years.

A First Choice survey has revealed the top 10 pictures taken these days during two weeks away are: the view through the plane window, drinking a cocktail, feet in the sand, holiday food, sun-lounger selfie, sunglasses reflection, holding the sun, name written in sand, tan lines and hot dog legs.

What? No picture in the airport bar before take-off with full pints at six in the morning?

Today most people take photographs with their phone which has the capacity to snap hundreds or thousands of shots, all which can be viewed immediately and deleted, saved or instantly posted on social media.

“Look at me having fun in the sun. Is it still raining in Huddersfield?”

The scope is much different than in the days when the only option was a camera which held a film had to be taken to Boots to be developed.

Prints of everything were produced, including feet and ceilings taken by mistake and out of focus attempts to take a picture when tired and emotional in the Tahiti Bar after several too many.

Pictures were often posed in that era because of the constraints of having a film that only took 12, 24 or round at our house for the duration. That was four adults and five grandchildren plus Maria and me.

The day the Irish tribe left, Sian took Maria to one side and, in a concerned voice, said: “Now they’ve gone, won’t you be lonely?” “No,” said Maria. “Just relieved. “Of course we’ll miss them. But we’ll see them again soon and we’re just glad to get our house back.”

Sian couldn’t understand that we are not lonely, despite me spending five days a week in my home office, and Maria seeing her friends for lunch a couple of times a week and working as a volunteer in the hospice shop and both of us socialising in the evening with friends.

We may be lucky, compared to others of all ages, but we haven’t got time to be lonely. 36 shots and the spontaneity of the holiday was lost and yet they had charm and were stuck into albums to be viewed and stir memories over the years to follow.

I’m a fan of that kind of photography. My shelves are full of albums from the past and I still print out the best of today’s pictures rather than leave them on a phone memory card or computer.

But I’m a greater fan of the camera phone which is like a back stage pass to life and gives access all areas. It allows experiment and creativity.

Back in the days of Boots, the outof-focus shot in the Tahiti Bar was probably the most emotive.

These days, you can get those shots with no effort. Although with today’s technology, making them out-of-focus might be a little difficult.